The research proposed is an epidemiological study of the relationships between alcohol problems and protracted unemployment, poverty and welfare dependency in a two-wave longitudinal study of welfare recipients. The specific aims of the project are to examine change over time in alcohol and drug use and problems in relation to varying experiences in poverty, as well as the sociodemographic correlates of such change. The project also examines ecological influences on alcohol problems manifested on the individual level, such as the contextual influences of residence in ghetto poverty communities and in neighborhoods where alcohol-and drug- related crime is commonplace. Longitudinal analysis focuses on modeling of the bi-directional relationships between substance abuse and socioeconomic indicators over time, for example examining effects of drinking on unemployment and vice versa. Las, the study examines the modifying effects of social support, emotional distress, social ecology, and service interventions on these relationships. The baseline study for this research was conducted in 1989 under the auspices of the Alcohol Research Group's Community Epidemiology Laboratory project. Time 1 data consist of probability sample of welfare recipients, representative of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children and General Assistance caseloads in a single county in California. This proposal seeks support to trace and re-interview these individuals after a five-year time interval has elapsed, to assess the nature of change in substance use and problems over time within the welfare population, and to examine the influences of alcohols problems on sustained unemployment, poverty and reliance on welfare. The project will thus provide new epidemiological evidence on a population about whom little is known in the area of substance abuse. Moreover, it examines subpopulations in poverty of considerable priority in the national research agenda on alcohol and drug problems, including women, ethnic minorities and single mothers--all of whom ar significantly over-represented in the welfare population.